How to get out from pasted text with colored background in a note?

[abdu 46]

When I copy some text from a web page with a colored background and paste it into a note, I am unable to get out of that text without creating new lines with the same background color. If I hit enter, it keeps adding new blank lines with the same background color. How do I put the cursor in the area with the white background after the pasted text?

[gazumped 11,661]

Hi.  When you cut and paste from a web page you often carry over the 'hidden' formatting codes which govern things like text style and background color.  If you paste into an otherwise empty note,  it will be difficult to switch the existing formatting off and go back to plain text.  There are several options -

• Use the Simplify,  or Remove Formatting commands on a desktop
• paste into the middle of an existing note so normal formatting exists both before and after the pasted section
  (create a 'blank' template note with several carriage returns if you'll need to do this often)
• create a blank line or two below the point at which you'll paste content
• create a new note for the subsequent text and merge the notes together

 

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, abdu said:

When I copy some text from a web page with a colored background and paste it into a note, I am unable to get out of that text without creating new lines with the same background color.

I've also been caught by this, and the lesson I learned was to not paste into an empty note.  Insert some blank lines and paste into the middle.

As to why - there's some complicated underlying html code that you're typing on top off.  Sometimes things get a little confused.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

12 hours ago, abdu said:

How do I put the cursor in the area with the white background after the pasted text?

Yep, it's a problem, and often you can't get back to the normal formatting of the Note.
So, there is no direct solution, only workarounds and preventative measures.

You can use blank lines a the other posters have suggested, but I like to use horizontal lines.  Both EN Mac and EN Win have a shortcut key to insert a HL, so if I paste something that fouls up formatting, I just do a CMD + Z to undo, and then CMD+SHFT+H twice, arrow up, and then CMD+V.

If you are doing this a lot, then you use use tools like Keyboard Maestro on the Mac and PhaseExpress on the PC to automate this process.

[Analyst444 182]

On EN Win, SHIFT CTRL V pastes text from a web page and it takes on the format of the point of the insert.

I almost always use that. Works just fine.

[Irving 0]

• create a blank line or two below the point at which you'll paste content

It,s a good advice!

[ljstl 6]

If your content is already in a note and you are trying to remove the background color, then select all of the text and click the highlight button to highlight all of the text, then click the highlight button again to remove the highlight.  When the highlighting is removed, the background color is set to white, thus removing the original background color.

[Darwood 1]

EN should have the ability to edit the background text or the underlying formatting (HTML?). This is a major shortcoming and a real pain in my opinion.

[DTLow 5,736]

2 hours ago, Darwood said:

EN should have the ability to edit the background text or the underlying formatting (HTML?). This is a major shortcoming and a real pain in my opinion.

Have you tried editing the underlying html code

A workflow is: 

• export in enex format
• edit with a text editor
• import 

There's also a cloud solution at http://enml-editor.ping13.net/

[lisec 283]

On 4/5/2017 at 8:44 AM, DTLow said:

Have you tried editing the underlying html code

There's also a cloud solution at http://enml-editor.ping13.net/

Seems that cloud solution no longer works:  "Unfortunately, ENML Editor has been shutdown. Thank you for your understanding."  Too bad. I never did get around to trying it.. 

Does anyone know why pasting from Firefox does not include the background but pasting from Chrome does? I looked everywhere in Chrome (and googled) but can't find a setting that says "don't include background when pasting" or something to that effect.

I finally ditched Firefox yesterday but when I pasted something from letterboxd.com into Evernote using Chrome I remembered why I stuck with Firefox for so long: pasting with Chrome includes the original site's background (black in this case).  I know I can (and do) use Ctrl ***** V to paste without formatting but that also removes links which I want to keep.

 

[jefito 5,589]

1 minute ago, lisec said:

Seems that cloud solution no longer works:  "Unfortunately, ENML Editor has been shutdown. Thank you for your understanding."  Too bad. I never did get around to trying it.. 

Yeah; I noticed that that went missing a month or more ago. Too bad, indeed. It was handy for this sort of stuff. The more indirect way is to export a note to .enex format, and hand edit it in a text editor, and then import it and use that instead of the original note. Kind of a pain if you need to tinker/experiment with the underlying markup and need several times to get it right, but it works; you can just wait until it's just exactly perfect before you switch out the old note for the new copy (and remove all of the failed experiments).

[jefito 5,589]

5 minutes ago, lisec said:

Ctrl ***** V

Haha -- I think you meant Ctrl Shift V; Ctrl ***** V is what you say when pasting without formatting doesn't work...

[lisec 283]

44 minutes ago, jefito said:

Haha -- I think you meant Ctrl Shift V; Ctrl ***** V is what you say when pasting without formatting doesn't work...

When you put it that way, I'm quite certain I meant the latter ;-)

[KeithF 5]

On 2/18/2017 at 1:20 PM, ljstl said:

If your content is already in a note and you are trying to remove the background color, then select all of the text and click the highlight button to highlight all of the text, then click the highlight button again to remove the highlight.  When the highlighting is removed, the background color is set to white, thus removing the original background color.

Excellent solution.

[DLStreit 4]

I use the Evernote Web Clipper to handle this problem.  Select "Simplified Article" as the clip type.  Add the notebook and tag(s) and save the clipped page.  You'll find the new note doesn't have the colored background areas.  Links are intact.

[abdu 46]

There's a free utility app which runs in the background and it strips the formatting when you paste in any app. It's called PureText.

Also some clipboard managers have an option to remove formatting when pasting.  I think ClipX has it.